something that could kill you. Don’t fall in love with five boys on an elementary school playground. “I knew that was what you meant.”
Callum chuckles, and I’m just so done with trying to find metaphors to describe his perfectly imperfect voice that I lean over and kiss him. It’s a sloppy, weird kiss, and it makes me feel my age, but it also makes my mouth sparkle and glitter.
Jesus.
Flushing, I turn back to the sunrise. Doesn’t mean I miss Cal’s saucy smile out of the corner of my eye. He reaches up to rub a hand over the scars on his neck.
“You should know, we thought about killing your stepdad years ago, even before we found the video.” Callum says that as easily as one might mention how they like their eggs for breakfast. I stare at him, but he just smokes his cigarette and sips his Pepsi, taking his time before he answers me. “Hael tried to do it for real once, but back then, we had nothing. We were nothing.” Cal snickers, eyes crinkling up with a genuine sense of emotion. “We became something for you, Bernadette. Havoc is a blade; wield it.”
“Hael tried to … kill Neil?” I clarify, blinking at him. Cal nods, his blond hair turning gold in the light of the rising sun. Even though mornings make me sad—because they always remind me of Pen and the way she used to say rise and shine when she’d wake me up—I can at least take a moment to say this is shaping up to be one of my bests. I’m here, and not with Pamela and the Thing. I’m here with Callum freaking Park.
“Not my story to tell,” Cal explains, glancing my way. His eyes are as blue as the sky behind his head. My breath catches, and I find myself looking away. I can’t believe I screwed Oscar before Callum. What a dick move. In any hand, in any game, Callum beats Oscar. “You should ask him though; bet he’d love to tell it.” I think about that, about Hael Harbin facing off against Neil Pence for me. My lips twitch against the beginnings of a smile. “We might’ve let Hael do it—helped him do it, actually—but the world was stacked against us.” Cal keeps watching me, like he’s trying to gauge my reaction. “We didn’t want Neil’s murder pinned on you. That, and someone would have to go to jail. That would mean never seeing you again. We were all too selfish to let you go.” Cal stops smoking, ashes his cigarette on the brown roof tiles, and then flicks the butt into the netherworld. “I won’t make that same mistake again, Bernie.” He looks out toward the other suburban houses that surround Aaron’s, their backyards all butt-fucked up against each other. Not that I can complain. Still better than the sandbox-sized dump they call a backyard that Pamela has back in South Prescott.
“Please don’t talk like that,” I say as he laughs at me, giving my scrunched up face a curious onceover with that beautiful blue gaze of his. Birds twitter in the trees around us, singing songs that are more cheerful than any living creature has a right to be. “If I were reading a book, I’d peg you as the sacrificial type, the first one to die.”
“Foreshadowing?” Cal jokes, but it’s not funny to me. I don’t want any heroic bullshit moves ruining what we’re building here. And what, exactly, are we building here, Bernie? I ask myself, but I’m not ready to answer that question, so I don’t bother.
“We haven’t slept together yet, so … it’d make narrative sense for you to be killed off.” My voice cracks a bit on the words because the thought of losing a Havoc Boy when I’ve only just gotten them … that kills me.
“Yet,” Cal purrs in his husky voice, expelling the sunlight from my aura and replacing it with star-studded darkness. I shimmy even closer to him. “There’s no rush, Bernadette. Just enjoy yourself. I don’t date, and I haven’t slept with anyone since school started.” He keeps smiling, but his eyes are far away and full of wicked whimsy.
“Victor acts like there’s a rush,” I say, wondering if Oscar or Hael is listening in on our conversation. They can if they want; I don’t give a shit. The shower was on when I came up the stairs, so I figure Aaron is naked, and wet, and his soapy hands are